


Hearts Like Ours

by sleepismyfriend



Series: The Woman in the Flower Shop [3]
Category: Doctor Who (1963), Doctor Who (2005), Sarah Jane Adventures
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-11
Updated: 2015-09-11
Packaged: 2018-04-20 06:12:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,946
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4776605
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sleepismyfriend/pseuds/sleepismyfriend
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In the days after Missy and the Cybermen, a grief-stricken Clara goes to one of the only people she knows understands.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hearts Like Ours

**Author's Note:**

> Takes place towards the end of 8x12 Death in Heaven.

It's half-past six when the doorbell rings, and Sarah pauses in the middle of her cuppa to answer. She doesn't have the door halfway open before she sees Clara, her eyes dark with circles and red from tears. 

"I needed someone who understands," Clara says, mumbling. 

Sarah steps back, and motions her inside. She knows that she'll get the full story before long, while making a mental note to fuss at the Doctor at a later date about his inability to send his companions home with a modicum of mental stability.

As Clara passes, she pushes her hair behind one ear, holding onto the edges of her longer sleeves. Sarah shuts the door behind her, and steels herself for the story ahead. 

Clara's sitting on the sofa, as Sarah enters. Sarah takes a seat next to the right of her, posturing herself to be both listening and comforting. 

Clara hunches forward, and stares out into space. Oddly enough, the posture reminds Sarah of her own post-Doctor conversation in the days following Aberdeen. She sends a small thanks to the universe that she had Aunt Lavinia.

"I threw his keys into a volcano," Clara says, her fingers making tiny circles. "Every last one of them. And, it wasn't real. It didn't bring Danny back."

Sarah places her hand in the middle of Clara's back, making slow gentle strokes back and forth. She does it several times before Clara speaks again. 

"I gambled my life away so often, I forgot it was a risk," she says, her voice deadening, as fresh tears trail both cheeks. "I forgot that people's lives were at stake, including my own. Including Danny's. The power of the Time Lords made me forget that time is a precious commodity that cannot always be rewritten."

Sarah inches closer, resting her arm along the young woman's back.

"He asked me, when he was still new, if I thought he was a good man. I don't think good men go around purposely getting people killed."

Sarah had seen Danny's obit in the paper; she knew that the Doctor hadn't anything to do with the accident, but wasn't about to correct Clara. 

"Sometimes, things happen that are beyond our control," Sarah says, thinking of Harry, who has been gone for a long time now, and whose death still stings in the quiet of the night when her guard is down. "And you can't blame the Doctor for those things."

"Not even when the man you love becomes a Cyberman?" Clara asks. Her body shakes with the tears, and Sarah's grip remains tight yet gentle. 

Clara turns towards her, her head drifting to Sarah's shoulder, and Sarah's eyes close. She hasn't had an opportunity to contact Kate, but Clara's mention of Cybermen puts a new perspective on news reports from across the globe. 

"Danny was a good man, and he loved you," Sarah says, holding her own tears at bay. She thinks of Danny's smile, the one he gave watching Clara float around the TARDIS console when the Doctor and Clara weren't paying attention to anyone but themselves.

After several moments, the crying slows, though Clara's head doesn't move. Sarah's braced herself, both arms around the younger woman, grateful for their petite frames.

"I look at the Doctor, and all I feel is anger and hate," Clara says. She takes a moment to try and sniffle back some more tears. "And, that's if I can even stomach the energy to look at him." 

"Life with the Doctor is exciting. It's full of wondrous beings and civilizations. Great foods, crazy smells," Sarah says, pushing Clara's hair behind her left ear. She remembers Harry's top ten rules. She always forgot half of them until she was stung or bitten by something she would have deemed innocuous on Earth. "But, outside of those blue box doors, there will always be high levels of danger and risk."

She's stroking Clara's head from top to bottom, much like she remembers Lavinia did for her, and imagines Clara's mum did for Clara before she died. 

"We could stay on Earth and never travel with the Doctor and still not be safe. What kind of adventurers would that make us, hmm?" Sarah tries to offer a smile, a glimmer of hope amongst the darkness she knows Clara carries.

"We'd be alive." Clara's voice is almost hoarse, the weight of anger settling within her bones. 

"You maybe," Sarah says, trying not to grimace. "But, people would have already forgotten about me. I would have become a story a long time ago."

"Sarah Jane?" 

"Yes?"

"Tell me a story," Clara says, sniffling back more tears. 

"Alright. What kind of story would you like me to tell?"

"Something with a happy ending—" Clara hiccups, and Sarah rubs up and down one of her arms. 

"Okay." Sarah's mind drifts, and before she can even speak the words, a small laugh escapes. 

Yes, that's the story she'll tell.

\--

The TARDIS' infamous whoosh into Sarah's back garden startles very little, as the grey-haired Doctor pokes his head out. It's evening, dark with a clouded sky. He closes the door behind him, and circles around where he finds Sarah sitting on her swing.

"Abysmal," she says, her gaze looking upward. "Can't even see one constellation." 

"Visibility should be bad for another few days yet," he says, his eyes following the same path upward. "You can't do much in England with the weather."

Her gaze lowers. 

"I heard you lost your TARDIS keys in a volcano."

The Doctor's gaze lowers to her.

"It was a telepathic test," he says, moving towards the empty spot next to her. He sighed, as he sat. "I needed to see what she would do, and she failed."

"Grief cannot be quantified as a failure or a weakness," Sarah says. 

"I disagree. No matter the size or the intelligence. Emotions make or break civilizations, just like that," he says, snapping his fingers.

"Are you really comparing Clara's grief to the pitfalls of the universe?" 

"You laid the groundwork, Miss Smith, I was merely supplementing it with further discussion," he pauses. "How is she?" 

"Turns out all she needed was a story and a safe place to lay her head," Sarah says. "Don't worry, Doctor, I'm sure I didn't give her any nightmares."

"You think you're being cute."

"No," Sarah says, shaking her head. "I think I'm seeing things in a mirror. A very similar very familiar mirror about thirty years apart."

"This isn't like when you lost Harry," he says.

"Why, because he was on Earth doing something ordinary, something human?" Sarah's voice rises, the guard once again lowering on her emotions. 

"Saving the ones that my companions love has never been my job. There are days when I wish it could be, but it isn't."

"When I came back to Earth, Harry was one of the few people I found I could confide in. One of the few who opened up his arms and truly listened as I droned on." Her voice evens, as she smirks. "He didn't call me 'old girl' once."

"So, you and the imbecile had a happily ever after long after I was gone. I get it," the Doctor sighs, looking away.

"He was my best friend," Sarah said, turning her head to stare at him. "And I adored him for it being enough."

Sarah's hesitant, but reaches for the Doctor's hand. He turns it, so the heels of their palms rest together without combining. 

"What do I do, Sarah?" The Doctor asks, in an almost whisper.

"Open up your arms and listen," she says, curving her fingers inward until his fold over hers. "Listen until there aren't any words left."

"And then what?" 

"Then," Sarah sighs. "Then you let it be enough."

"That's a tall order. The good Doctor was really okay with all of that?"

"Like you said," she says, smiling, her eyes twinkling with moisture. "He was a good Doctor."

\--

As Clara approaches, her hands are shoved in her jacket pockets. There's a slight burden to her that Sarah doesn't expect, as she lowers her teacup. They're outside in a nearby café, and the cooler breeze doesn't deter Sarah from the fall sunshine.

"Hey," she says.

"Hello," Sarah says, smiling. "How was it? How do you feel? Are you hungry? We could get you something. Oh, bollocks, listen to me, turning all mumsy at the drop of a hat. Please, sit, and tell me what happened."

Clara laughs with a near snort, as she takes the seat across from Sarah.

"It was like we expected. He was—Well, himself."

"That sounds dreadful already."

"It was—" Clara hesitates, staring off into space, as she fiddles with the thick bracelet on her arm. When it doesn't move, she looks hard at Sarah. "He said he found Gallifrey." 

The older woman's face falls. 

"What?" 

"Yeah, he, um, said the Missy wasn't lying. Her coordinates led him right to it, plain as day. Sitting out there in space like the Time War never happened."

"I don't believe it. Sounds too much like a story, and the Master is notorious for those. Too perfect to be completely true." 

"She's known the Doctor longer than anyone. Maybe in the end, she was capable of some form of truth."

"And, what did the Doctor say?"

"He's going to become a queen or something, I don't know. It wasn't one of our more coherent conversations," Clara says, with a half-smirk. The smirk's one of her hiding tells, and Sarah's expression doesn't change.

"I've never been to Gallifrey," Sarah says, in a hushed tone, looking away. The white-haired Doctor appears in her mind, and she looks back to Clara. "Well, properly been, but that's another story for another time. How would the Master even get that kind of power?"

"Maybe the Time Lords helped from the other side? They can be rather crafty when they choose to be," Clara says.

"Maybe, but you can't just find a planet when it's tucked away in alternative time. Think of the considerable pressure that would be placed on the space-time continuum to cross from one realm to the next. The walls of the universe would have to be extremely weak. I suppose we could have Mr Smith and Luke run some mathematical simulations—" 

"He thinks he saved Danny, and that we're together," Clara says, struggling to swallow the small lump in her throat. "It felt too easy to make him believe I didn't want to travel with him again."

"And do you? Not want to travel with him again?"

"I don't know." Clara's eyes narrow at the appearance of direct sunlight. "I have a broken heart; he has a broken planet. We could leave things like that, you know? It would be a fitting end."

"But not an honest one, for either of you."

"You managed."

"Yes, and I waited a very long time for a goodbye. Is that what you want? To wait thirty years alone for a day that may never come?" Sarah's voice catches. "Because I wouldn't wish that on anyone."   


Clara shrugs, as a lopsided smile appears.

"There's 13 of him out there now, and I've nearly met them all. Who's to say our paths won't cross again?"

As Sarah and Clara continue their conversation, they fail to see a faded Police Box sitting off in the distance. The spiky-haired Doctor in a brown suit and white Converse stands in the open doorway.

With Clara's back to him, the Doctor watches Sarah sit back and laugh, as he leans his head against the TARDIS. A small smile appears before he steps back, and closes the TARDIS door behind him.


End file.
